Something to Reach For
by jainga
Summary: Why do birds have wings? Kenshin and Karou angst...you have been warned. This may stay a oneshot, or not...


Had this for a while, but somehow the story that went with it never quite came together properly. If anyone wants to write it feel free, just let me know the name so I can read it. Who knows maybe I'll get inspired and actually be able to get my own done.

WARNING: th'ar be angst ahead…

Disclaimer: yeah, yeah… don't own.

* * *

Kaoru sat crumpled by the window, water from her hair soaking into her yukata, the thin fabric clinging to her curves and chilling in the evening air. Kaoru hardly noticed as she sat staring blankly at her hands. She had washed them twice, and still there was blood in the crevices surrounding her nails, an ominous red brown out-line that spoke ruthlessly of the decision she had made, the one that would change her life forever. The one she knew she would choose to make again if the same situation arose twice. The one that had ended her childhood forever, and still she could not seem to regret it. 

One should, shouldn't they, when they've taken someone's life? One should mourn more for the life that was lost, than for the fact that they don't regret that loss. And yet she couldn't bring herself to care for the man whose blood now stained her hands, they were too consumed by thoughts of the hands she had protected from his blood.

She sighed darkly as the shoji slid open, her gaze sliding from her hands to the floor in front of her, but did not otherwise stir as the even tread she had become so familiar with these past few months approached.

The thick white fabric of his hakama swept into her view drawing her eyes up his sock clad foot and over his impeccable hakama and blood red gi. Past the tip of his ponytail where it lay over his shoulder and to the twin fires of molten gold.

Usually he didn't care to dress so formally, but she guessed that there were some kind of announcements to be made when a prominent yakuza daimyo was killed by the half trained, teenaged daughter of a policeman. She couldn't think of what they could possibly be, but surely there was _something_ ceremonial to be done.

"Why Kaoru?" His voice grated out, a wounded dragon, holding back his cries of pain and rage. A broken warrior, just come home from the fight. No, she corrected herself, wars end, and those that fought them can look forward to the peace that comes afterward. This life, the life of a yakuza, ended only with death. Those who lived it had no rest from the battles and the bloodshed. He needed a place of peace, one protected from the worst of the danger, one that would protect him from the blood that the rest of his world bathed in; that the rest of his world asked him to bathe in for them…

Her eyes began to slowly slip back down his form, but he dropped to his knees before her, the fingers of his right hand gripping her chin to force her to meet his stare.

"Why, Kaoru?"

She met his burning golden gaze, with the sting of tears prickling behind her eyes, "Because, nothing else was guaranteed to work." A faint whisper of sound that made him flinch as if struck. A look of disgust entered his amber orbs as he turned from her to stand staring at the wall, his feet braced wide and his shoulders set.

"Have a little faith in me, Kaoru! Yukishiro was too far away to have gotten to me before I drew my blade. There was no need for you act as you did." He snarled to the room at large.

"No need for me…" she whimpered eyes wide and sparkling from the tears she refused to shed. "And then what Kenshin? You'd have killed him?" She asked in a slightly stronger tone.

"Yes!" The answer was growled through clenched teeth as his hands fisted at his sides.

"NO!" It was entirely instinctive to lunge across the distance separating them to brace her upper body on one hand as the other gripped the edge of his hakama. "I don't…" she stared fixedly at the tatami mats beneath her as the tears finally began to fall; silent drops that disappeared into the floor the moment they touched it. "I didn't want that! Kenshin…I…I don't ever want you to kill for me."

She felt the stillness that seized his body and dared to lift her head, her silent tears leaving moist trails down her cheeks to drip from her chin.

"And what of you Kaoru?" he asked woodenly, "What of your father's beliefs? Do they now mean nothing to you?"

"No!... I mean Yes! I…they mean everything to me Kenshin, but…Kamiya Kasshin is a sword that protects, maybe if I had been better, if I were a true master of my father's style…The succession technique may have stopped him without killing him, but…" She trailed off as she choked on her words, her throat burning with suppressed sobs. "But, I've never done it properly… and…and if it had failed, then I wouldn't have been able to protect anything. Surely…surely father would have agreed that it is better to sacrifice part of yourself, then to…" she broke off again as she was assaulted by hiccups. Slowly she released his pants to pound weakly on the floor as she tried to stem the flow of tears that ran freely from her clenched eyes.

She gasped as hard, sword calloused hands dragged her up by her shoulders, forcing watery blue pools to meet with molten metal ones…glowing pools that were alive with anger. "I NEVER ASKED YOU TO PROTECT ME!"

And finally he roars, she thought gratefully as her heart rate slowed and her breathing became even. With a painful smile she closed her eyes and tentatively reached up, reached out, to cradle his face in her palms; to cradle his pain. She tucked her legs under her for stability and drew her face up, or his face down, she didn't know which, but she didn't stop until their foreheads rested lightly against each other.

With a small tearful laugh she opened her eyes to stare directly into his confused, fearful ones. How odd, she mused, that he should fear comfort as others feared pain. "One doesn't protect others because they're asked to Kenshin, they protect others…because they want to."

He fell backwards in confusion, bracing his palms on the floor to remain upright, his feet extended on either side of her.

Kaoru followed, kneeling between his thighs, and moved her hands to his shoulders smiling down at him like a mother whose child had just scraped their knee for the first time. A mother who knows that their child is in pain, and knows that there is nothing she can do to take away that pain, or to shield her child from all of the lessons that that one fall just taught them. The world is painful…Mother can't protect you from everything…and…and sometimes…you have to pick yourself up on your own.

"Protect me? Kaoru, protect me from what?" The words were a bare murmur, a pained moan that pulled at her heart. "I've killed a hundred times, a hundred times a hundred. What do you think one more could do? Why would you protect me from that which I've done so often?"

"Because Kenshin," She whispered, tenderly brushing his bangs away so she could see his eyes clearly. "I can see it, that wall you've built in your mind to keep out all that blood, all the remorse you have for those you've killed, and for those you've failed to save. I can see it, Kenshin, if no one else can. The tide has grown behind it, it won't hold it back forever, and I will not…I can not…add to your burden. The principles of Kamiya Kasshin Ryu is a sword that protects, it protects as many as it can from as much as it can.

"I would be a true failure to my father's sword, if I had let you kill Enishi; if I had sat, and protected nothing, neither his life, nor your hands." At this she trailed her hand down his arm embracing his hand between hers, petting the palm before drawing it up to press a gentle kiss along his knuckles. "If I had tried the succession technique and I had failed it as I have always done before, then Enishi would have killed me. Not even he would have been able to turn his sword in time to stop it from slaying me. If I had died, Kenshin, I know you would have avenged me, no matter that I wouldn't have wanted it. Then I would be dead, he would be dead, and you would add our blood to the reservoir hidden just behind those beautiful eyes. I chose the option that saved the most, and that is the true meaning of Kamiya Kasshin. But, more, Kenshin, I chose…to save you from whatever pain it would have caused you to kill him.

"And, Kenshin, do not think to feel guilt over what I have done, for I have no regrets from taking his life…He is, I know, he must be with his sister now, and with this painful life over, maybe now they can begin a new one free of this life of the Yakuza; a life full of hope and joy. So do not mourn for something you have perceived me to have lost, for I didn't lose anything this day, I just gained a new light to look at the world by."

She smiled brightly at him and leaned forward to brush their noses together in the lightest of touches. "Ne, Kenshin? It's okay now."

She gasped in surprise as his arms locked around her, steel restraints made of flesh and bone that pulled her against him and let him burry his face in the curve of her shoulder, breathing in the jasmine and lavender of her scent.

It wasn't until she felt something sliding down her neck to soak into her already damp yukata, that she realized he wasn't trembling from anger or frustration, but because he was crying. He was leaning against her, crying silently so that no other would know his momentary weakness.

With timid fierceness she wrapped her arms around him: one at his shoulders, and one buried in his hair. "It's okay Kenshin, it is okay to cry. I know that the tears don't seem like much compared to the ocean of sorrow you bear within you, but the guilt and pain they carry with them as they leave is immeasurable. So cry, I will hold you, and no one need know but us."

She sat there gently rocking him as he clutched her against him and cried as the sun broke over the horizon to ponderously begin it's ascent for a new day.

* * *

Kenshin woke to sunlight pouring in through the windows and the soothing scent of jasmine twining with pine as Kaoru shifted closer to him on the futon. With a tender smile he tucked some of her unruly hair back before slipping out from under the blanket. He quickly donned his gi and hakama before tucking the covers more firmly around her bare form. 

He glared at the window a moment for waking him, then crossed to it intending to draw the curtain lest Kaoru be awakened in the same manner, when the reflection in the glass made him stop and catch his breath in wonder. There, with the pristine whiteness of new fallen snow as a shimmering backdrop, was Tomoe sitting in her old chair, mending one of his training gi; the child of himself sitting beside her absently spinning a wooden top as she worked. As he watched she turned to the boy.

"Ne, Kenshin? Why do birds have wings?" Her voice was just as he remembered, soft and caressing.

The boy he had been looked up frowning "So they can fly." He stated obviously.

"No, that's wrong." She chastised him, then looked up brown eyes colliding with gold as she looked to the man, "It's so we always have something just beyond out grasp; so we can always have something to reach for."

"Something to reach for, hmmm?" Kenshin mused slipping on some shoes as he opened the door and stepped outside, seeing for the fist time in many years, not bloody tracks that he had to follow to find Tomoe's crumpled form, but sparkling perfection. And for the first time he could remember, he just stood and stared at the beauty of the world around him, without expecting something to break the serenity.

Kaoru stirred as a cold breeze infiltrated her cozy cocoon. With a quiet mumble she reached out without even thinking of what she was reaching for. When she discovered it missing she gathered the blanket around her and sat up blinking blearily. The courtyard door was open, and she could just see Kenshin standing outside it.

With slightly pained movements she settled herself into a winter yukata and moved to slip into shoes. When she stood she looked to see that Kenshin had turned to her, and was watching her with the careful expression usually reserved for dogs that were trying to outguess their masters; does he want me to move left, or right?

With a worried expression she carefully picked her way over to him, stopping at the iced and snowbound bird fountain.

"You're hurt." He stated in concern as he reached out to steady her.

She smiled at him wryly as her right hand absently played with the snow on the fountain. "Well, between one thing and another yesterday, I got quite a workout." Glancing down at the ball of snow she had amassed she was struck by a childish whim. "Hey, Kenshin, when was the last time you had a snow fight?"

"Hmmm?" He turned to look at her in confusion, but was stopped by a face full of cold snow. "Huh?" he gasped in surprise as he blinked to clear his vision. Then smiled predatorily when he spied Kaoru now on the other side of the fountain busily packing another snowball. With a smirk he scooped up snow and lightly packed it with one hand, taking careful aim and releasing it to smack her in the chest.

Kaoru glanced around with a giggle, and called to the spiky brown-haired boy sweeping the steps, "Hey, Yahiko, come on! It's no fair with just me against Kenshin. He's too good."

The boy readily relinquished his duties to play in the snow, racing over and beginning a barrage of snowballs at the startled red head.

Sanosuke had came out and began trudging his way over to see what all the fuss was about when Kenshin emitted a shocked "Oro!" and promptly fell face down on the ground.

Two stories up on a balcony, Hiko bushed off his hands and glanced at a shocked Aoshi as Sano fished the dazed Yakuza leader out of the snow and Kaoru went running over to make sure he was all right.

With a smirk Hiko turned to the balcony door, "That idiot apprentice never did keep his guard up as well as he should. It's cold, I'm going back inside. Stay here if you want, but I'm taking the sake in with me."

* * *

some what inspired by Tokyo Crazy Paradise...If you havn't read it I suggest finding scanlations somewhere, far as I know it isn't licensed outside of Japan, and it is well worth the read! 


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